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At Least Intel Admits They Have Too Many Drivers

07-16-2010, 05:10 PM

Phoronix: At Least Intel Admits They Have Too Many Drivers

Yesterday we found it interesting that Intel is not even able to ship their own Linux driver for their own hardware with their MeeGo operating system. The driver in question is their new EMGD driver for the Menlow and Tunnel Creek platforms that have a graphics core that's designed by Imagination Technologies rather than their own in-house intellectual property. The EMGD driver from Intel currently requires signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement with them to gain access to this driver, but it's not the only driver available that targets the Intel GMA 500 / GMA 600 graphics core that's derived from the Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX 535...

FYI: I'm not actually a meego user... I'm only interested in meego as far as the potential for it to help get some kind of driver for gma500. I actually run Fedora 13 on my poulsbo tablet/netbook, and it just happens that meego lines up pretty good with Fedora 13.

Imagination licences a core to a customer (such as Intel) so that they can make a product. The customer then decides how to support this product and what will be supported on it. Different customers want different levels of involvement from Imagination to provide drivers for their product and to deliver these drivers to end users. In this case, Intel have chosen to control distribution of drivers themselves which means that Imagination don't distribute the drivers - I can't give you any. If there are none available from Intel then you should take this up with them.

The agreements concerning how drivers are written, for which platforms and who writes them etc. are confidential and not something I can talk about on this forum.

This issue is something we're aware of, have discussed and something I've even investigated myself so I appreciate your frustration and will pass on your concerns. I can't help more than that, I'm afraid.

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I got this feeling that Intel could not have got the next core done in time so this Poulsbo disaster is just a nasty quick interim solution. Or maybe their own team is too busy helping out the CPU crew to get shader cores into the 'CGPU'...

It seems stupid for Intel to not create their own shit...

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I got this feeling that Intel could not have got the next core done in time so this Poulsbo disaster is just a nasty quick interim solution. Or maybe their own team is too busy helping out the CPU crew to get shader cores into the 'CGPU'...

It seems stupid for Intel to not create their own shit...

Indeed Intel is lagging behind in terms of power efficiency when compared to ARM SoC's. They'll probably be able to lower power, but it seems wiser to first concentrate on CPU, and then attack GPU, than to try to attack both targets at the same time. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens

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Indeed Intel is lagging behind in terms of power efficiency when compared to ARM SoC's. They'll probably be able to lower power, but it seems wiser to first concentrate on CPU, and then attack GPU, than to try to attack both targets at the same time. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens

Bullshit. They use the same GPU and VPU cores... As for the TDP of the SoC, it's more like a marketing hype. Intel gives number for the whole SoC. Some other people only give out numbers for the ARM CPU core.

As for the drivers, yes, Intel does write their own. And yes, the various Intel divisions probably don't share the same code. If true, this indeed is a stupid waste of resources.

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Bullshit. They use the same GPU and VPU cores... As for the TDP of the SoC, it's more like a marketing hype. Intel gives number for the whole SoC. Some other people only give out numbers for the ARM CPU core.

Oh really? So Moorestown is more/as power-efficient as a similar ARM-based SoC? And the same applies to non Imagination-based Intel chips? Especially as Moorestown is a two-chip solution (Lincroft + Langwell pair).

I've never trusted marketing hype, but I'm fairly certain that Intel SoC's still need more power than a similar ARM SoC. I'm also sure Intel will catch up.

As for the drivers, yes, Intel does write their own. And yes, the various Intel divisions probably don't share the same code. If true, this indeed is a stupid waste of resources.

They even write drivers for SGX chips? Or do they only add some layer to an existing driver provided by Imagination? Anyway that alas wouldn't change anything to the issue of NDA and multiple drivers.